CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vimkeyboard-shortcuts
GhitaB
GhitaB

Reputation: 3437

What's the difference between de and dw in vim?

Following vimtutor tips I found the following in Lesson 2.3:

Many commands that text are made from an operator and a motion.
The format for a  follows:

      d   motion

Where:
  d      - is the delete operator.
  motion - is what the operator will operate on (listed below).

A short list of motions:
  w - until the start of the next word, EXCLUDING its first character.
  e - to the end of the current word, INCLUDING the last character.
  $ - to the end of the line, INCLUDING the last character.

However, I don't see the difference between dw and de. What's the use case when using dw and de?

Upvotes: 17

Views: 10116

Answers (2)

romainl
romainl

Reputation: 196789

dw means "cut from here to next word".

before: fo[o]bar baz
        dw
after:  fo[b]az

de means "cut from here to the end of the current word".

before: fo[o]bar baz
        de
after:  fo[ ]baz

Upvotes: 27

Ionică Bizău
Ionică Bizău

Reputation: 113455

Having a buffer like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor

Move the cursor (▒) in the middle of ipsum word:

Lorem ip▒um dolor

Now press de:

Lorem ip▒dolor

The cursor deleted the letters from the current word, until end, but without space.

When doing dw, the space will be deleted:

Lorem ip▒olor

Upvotes: 15

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